I thought this was a joke but it seems like it's actually legit. WoW, which has a subscription and paid expansions, just added a $90 item to their store. This is Korean MMO levels of absurdity. What do you think of this?

Seems like hundreds of people bought it immediately

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[–] Euphorazine@lemmy.world 83 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

It's actually more insidious. Blizzard facilitates gold buying by being a middle man. 30 days of wow subscription is $15. Blizzard sells a $20 wow token. Buyers of the token automatically sell it in game to players for gold. Players who sell their In game gold can redeem the token for game time or $15 Blizzard bucks, which can buy any virtual item in the Blizzard store. Games, expansions, and mounts such as this.

If you don't want to spend $90 in real life, you can sell your gold for 6 tokens for $90 Blizzard bucks and get the mount.

The token has been hovering around $170k all month and now it spiked to almost $360k (token price tracker). So now cash buyers can get way more gold for their bucks, and the 6 tokens exchanged for gold (to buy the mount) will net Blizzard $120.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 23 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I’ve known about the gold tokens system, it has made sense as a way to invalidate black market gold sellers, equalizing WoW gold against the US Dollar. Still don’t quite understand why the token would now sell for 170k though…? Unless you didn’t mean to use the dollar symbol.

[–] TrousersMcPants@lemmy.world 27 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

They probably meant 170k gold in-game

Also what they haven't said is that the price is set by players of the game,. When someone buys a WoW token and exchanges it for gold, that's because a player has paid them with gold they earned for the token. These tokens can be then used to pay for your monthly subscription.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You are correct. Token value is decided by players on the auction house, not Blizzard, though I'm sure someone will argue that they are capable of manipulating the AH and therefore they are driving it up

[–] TrousersMcPants@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

They are capable of it, but I don't really see why they would. Making the tokens cost more gold would mean less people willing to buy them on the AH and therefore less people selling tokens. I think the prices have just exploded because of the mount releasing. As someone else mentioned on here, I believe Blizzard just sets a minimum price for tokens.

[–] Promethiel@lemmy.world 18 points 2 weeks ago

Those amounts aren't USD yeah, probably habit when writing down money. The 170k and 360k figures are the WoW virtual currency aka "gold".

There is a floor to WoW token's gold value from what I recall (it's been years since I interacted with Blizzard and WoW) but no ceiling.

Dunno how hard it curbed bots/unsanctioned gold sellers/fascist scum grassroots campaigns (no, really, look into Stephen Bannon and WoW gold it's so fucking stupid) but!

Blizzard absolutely realized and then moved to take all the money that was being left on the table from 3rd party virtual currency sales, and they apply every measure and analytical tool to maximize that profit because of course.

This mount's release is literally them inflating the price of the virtual currency ahead of real life earnings calls, because it absolutely will sell and give them the revenue infusion that the WoW token's rise in value is meant to provide for as long as they want until it's time to pump the numbers again with another mount/high sought store item.

A very similar variant in form and function to this mount was once available in-game and trade able with a rarity tuned that it ended up being sold for the WoW Token equivalent of ~$500 at the prices at the time, as there was no store version or similar option elsewhere.

It's no accident that when the price of the WoW Token is at its lowest, here comes a slightly updated and dolled up version of that same highly sought mount version.

WoW is where real economics, car ownership culture, hoarding, and dopamine treadmills collide and Blizzard doesn't just know this but have it charted on 5 year plans.